Instructor Class Description

Special Topics in Interactive Media Design

Provides an opportunity to study a special topic on interactive media design. Offered: AWSpS.

Class description

Course is co-taught by Professor Kochhar-Lindgren and Ronnie Thibault, current MACS graduate student.

(Cross-listed with BIS 322)

Story as Art, Interactivity, and Community Engagement
This course will focus on a practice-based approach to story as art, interactivity, and community engagement with a specific focus on the UWB campus community. Three consecutive sections will frame our work together in order to develop processes and skills in: 1) gathering and archiving stories, 2) exploring what we can do with stories (movement, materials, digital media), and 3) performing stories—in both online and live venues.
The format of the class will include lecture-demos, skills training, collaborative workshops, and on-site activities across the UWB campus. This multi-tiered approach will provide opportunity for students to develop a wide range of skills related to story, arts, interactivity, and community engagement, including active listening skills, diverse modes of creative and critical problem-solving, and collecting, archiving, documenting, disseminating, and perform stories. Special attention will be paid to how interactive media architectures can provide a useful and dynamic frame for generating new modes of sharing our stories. The course will culminate in a digital story installation and a campus-cabaret event.
This course will be of particular interest for a wide range of students, including, but not limited to those interested in learning more about arts, cultures, and contexts; those interested in learning about the research and problem solving approaches of arts-based work; those interested in the applications of the arts to media technology, engineering, and urban design; and those interested in the links of the arts with community engagement.

Student learning goals

An overview of story, interactivity, and community engagement that investigates the relationships between story, art, creativity, imagination, and community engagement (Critical Thinking, Interdisciplinary Research)

An understanding of the application of story, interactivity, and community engagement in the context of UWB that focuses on how story collection, exploration, and performance can contribute to diverse communities and knowledge formations (IAS critical thinking; interdisciplinary research)

An introduction to collaborative practices in relation to arts-based research and participatory action research in order to learn what is meant by story-arts practice and how story-arts practices evolve, learn how to create story-arts utilizing diverse media and forms), engage in collaborative endeavors through the story-arts, and study multiple approaches for evaluating story-arts. (Collaboration and shared leadership, interdisciplinary research-practice as research)

The development of a skill set that can be applied to student(s) areas of interest (that will provide foundations for success in art careers and graduate programs) (Writing and presentation)

General method of instruction

The format of the class will include lecture-demos, skills training, collaborative workshops, and on-site activities across the UWB campus. The course will culminate in a digital story installation and a campus-cabaret event.

Recommended preparation

Interest in the topic

Class assignments and grading

Participation (40%): The course is about community building on multiple levels, and as a result it will require an active and ongoing commitment to engage in all course sessions, activities, and related events. Because of the highly interactive structure of the class, students will be required to submit a bi-weekly summary sheet providing evidence and self-evaluation of participation.

Reading (20%): There will be required reading that will serve to build a shared theoretical and practical frame for all course participants. Evidence of growing capacity to leverage related theory and practice will be measured through worksheets, reporting out processes from group work, and short writing assignments.

On-site events (25%): Story booth (Gathering stories), Workshop (Leading an exploration of story-arts), and Performing (Digital creation, Live creation, Event management).
Groups will demonstrate and apply project-based participatory action research skills by creating and implementing the story booth, a workshop, and related performance installations throughout the quarter that will lead up to a final collective class performance.
Final Paper: (15%) and Related Documentation of what you have learned in the class.

See above under the general nature of the assignments.

The information above is intended to be helpful in choosing courses. Because the instructor may further develop his/her plans for this course, its characteristics are subject to change without notice. In most cases, the official course syllabus will be distributed on the first day of class.
Last Update by Kanta A Kochhar
Date: 07/29/2013

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Modified:April 23, 2014